A passive optical network (PON) is one system for providing network access over “the last mile.” The PON is a point to multi-point network comprised of an optical line terminal (OLT) at the central office, an optical distribution network (ODN), and a plurality of optical network units (ONUs) at the customer premises. In some PON systems, such as Gigabit PON (GPON) systems, downstream data is broadcasted at about 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) while upstream data is transmitted at about 1.25 Gbps. A ten gigabit per second (Gbps) GPON (XGPON) system may have a downstream bandwidth of about ten Gbps and an upstream bandwidth of at least about 2.5 Gbps. A PON system may lose its service availability upon failure of the fiber links and/or a plant infrastructure component. The use of the wireless system as an external backup system requires authentication.